


Cards in the Hand

by gamerfic



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, F/M, Flashbacks to Dragon Age: Origins, Gen, Memory Alteration, Missing Scene, Ultimate Sacrifice, Wicked Grace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 13:22:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3571181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamerfic/pseuds/gamerfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What were Solas and Leliana doing while almost everyone else at Skyhold was playing Wicked Grace with the Inquisitor?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cards in the Hand

Solas stood alone in the shadow of a stone column on one of the balconies that overlooked the main hall of Skyhold and watched the game of Wicked Grace being played below him. In front of the enormous and cozy fireplace, around a table heavy-laden with food and drink, Varric dealt out the cards again and again. Piles of coins shifted ceaselessly between the players like sand dunes being slowly reshaped by the wind - _although mostly they seem to shift toward Josephine and away from Cullen_ , Solas noted with amusement. At the center of it all sat Inquisitor Lavellan - holding her own in the game as she did in every aspect of life, surviving if not always succeeding, her face bright with the uncomplicated joy she took from the presence of her friends. So wise, yet so oblivious. When he watched her like this he wanted to leave this place for good, before he could hurt her any more than he knew he would eventually have to. He wanted to descend the stairs and claim the seat at the table that he knew she would give to him if he only asked. He already knew that he would do neither.

He also knew that the Inquisitor would ask him later why he hadn't joined in the game. When Solas had heard the first rumblings of Varric's plans for the evening, he had chosen to make himself scarce and to avoid the invitation he knew Varric would extend to him regardless of their past differences. But he had no such desire to evade the Inquisitor, despite the fact that he still didn't know how he would answer her. Was it fear of tipping his own hand that kept him separate from her, from everyone? Or did he stay away because he knew that the more he permitted himself to care, the more difficult it would become to do what he must do? It didn't matter. No matter what he did, it wasn't as if he could ever tell her the truth.

Before Solas could decide on his next convenient lie, a prickle of sudden awareness on the back of his neck warned him that he was no longer alone on the balcony. He forcibly suppressed the old predator's instincts that told him, _strike the first blow, end this before your prey can escape or your enemy can gain dominance,_ and held himself perfectly still, waiting for the intruder to give something more away.

He didn't have to wait for very long. Soft footsteps approached him from behind, accompanied by a rustle of cloth and a deliberately cleared throat. Solas looked toward the faint noise and saw Leliana emerging from the gloom with her eyes grim and glittering beneath her hood. "Lady Nightingale," he said to her, trying not to let on that she had very nearly taken him by surprise.

"Good evening, Solas," Leliana replied, and moved to stand beside him at the balcony railing. He saw the way she unclasped her hands and placed them in front of her with a carefully studied and too-casual motion, saw the involuntary twitch of a muscle behind her jawline, and already knew what she was going to ask him. "Why aren't you playing Wicked Grace with the others?"

"I was not invited," he said, and turned his gaze down into the main hall. Cullen's poor play had finally cost him the last of his coins, and he was in the process of removing his shirt in response to the most recent round of bets, blushing furiously as Blackwall and Sera laughed and shouted increasingly vulgar words of encouragement. The Inquisitor grinned and took a long drink from her mug of ale before the Iron Bull grabbed it out of her hand to refill it. Her focus drifted away from the table, out into the empty darkness, and for a moment a wistful expression crossed her face and he heard (or perhaps imagined) the echo of a single brief burst of longing: _I wish Solas were here._ She couldn't possibly have known that he was looking at her - yet for the next few heartbeats, before she took back her mug and returned her attention to her cards, Solas could not have felt more exposed.

"I find that difficult to believe," said Leliana, casting a glance of her own toward the Inquisitor.

"And yet it is the truth. I might ask the same of you, you know. I can believe that Madame de Fer would not deign to lower herself to gamble among the commoners, but it surprises me that an Orlesian bard would miss the chance to dazzle others with her powers of deception."

"I am no longer an Orlesian bard. That being said, I still had to decline Varric's invitation. I told him that if I played, the outcome would not be enjoyable for anyone but me. The game would be over when it had scarcely begun, and it wouldn't only be Cullen losing his shirt." The boasting lightened her tone into something more teasing and playful, but Solas could hear the blade she hid inside it, could sense the snare waiting to catch his leg and the cold regard of the hunter. "You can relate to that, can't you? I hear you asked Blackwall to teach you to play Diamondback and then took him for everything he was worth."

"There seems to be very little you don't hear."

"And that is the duty I bear to the Inquisition, wouldn't you agree?" Leliana didn't wait for him to respond. "I realized something when I heard that story. You and I are not so different, Solas. One might say that we both hold our cards close to our chests. But even so, it's clear to me that we both seek knowledge above all else."

"An admirable pursuit indeed, spymaster."

"Then you understand why I can't stop asking questions any more than you can." Once again, she had placed her full attention upon him, and he turned to face her, making himself as hard and unflinching as she had become. "Why did you join the Inquisition, Solas?"

"Because Corypheus threatens everyone and everything. I could never live with myself if I did not do everything in my power to stop him. And in all of Thedas, the Inquisition stands the best chance of thwarting his plans." It was a smooth and practiced response that left no space for ambiguity or debate. "You have posed me this question before and I have answered it. There is no purpose in asking me again."

"Unless your answer has changed." Leliana gestured toward the game of Wicked Grace - toward the Inquisitor, radiant in the firelight, laughing at whatever Cullen was saying as he took off his boots and slid them across the floor to Josephine. "Is it only because of Corypheus, Solas? Or is it because of the Inquisitor?"

 _So much of winning at Diamondback is in knowing when to fold,_ Solas thought. So he gave Leliana a slight nod, let her notice how he seemingly could not control the way he briefly glanced at the Inquisitor. "She is important to me," he said, and realized that he had never spoken those words aloud before, not even to the Inquisitor herself.

"I suspected as much. But she is important to everything else, too. We must not allow anything to distract her from her obligations."

"Your meaning is clear. I suggest that you direct any further concern and disapproval to the Inquisitor. Ask her which of us first pursued the other, and the answer may surprise you." _As it surprised me._ "Everything that has happened between us has been by her will."

"I never intended to insinuate otherwise." Now Leliana's tone was conciliatory, meant on its surface to put him at ease but achieving quite the opposite. "I say all of this because I want you to understand why I need to call your bluff." Out of the corner of his eye, Solas noticed the subtle twist of her wrist as she slid her concealed stiletto out of her sleeve and dropped it into her palm with no sound to mark its unsheathing. He could smell the poison on the blade. He gave no sign that he had seen her ready her weapon, only drew his power to him until it pressed up against the Veil like an eager pack of mabari awaiting a command from their master. It would take much more than a simple knife in the dark to kill the Dread Wolf - but this body he inhabited could still die, and with it all of his fragile plans for the orb he had given to Corypheus. _A setback from which I - and the People - might not recover in time._ So he held loosely to his magic where it lurked far beyond the limits of her awareness and waited for her to make the next move.

"You'll recall that I questioned you extensively when you joined us," Leliana continued. "You didn't give me much to go on except the name of the village where you grew up. But it was a place to start. Some of my agents have been searching for that settlement ever since. A few days ago, they found it." She took a step closer to him and lowered her voice to a whisper. "It's a ruin, Solas. It has been for centuries. But you knew that, didn't you? You lied to us all from the start." Her fingers tightened on the hilt of the stiletto. "Of course, you've helped us, too. And I know all too well that there are times when a lie cannot be avoided. So against my better judgment I will give you one last chance to tell me the truth." Her eyes, chill and hardened and brimming with terrible certainty, locked with his. "Who are you? Why are you here?"

Solas did not look away. He allowed himself to appear apologetic, even regretful. It wasn't a difficult expression to summon; Leliana's initiative and persistence were impressive and tremendously useful when applied to other mysteries, and he wished that he did not have to thwart her now. He drew in a shaky breath and spoke - not a confession, not even another lie, but a single deep and resonant word not heard within the walls of Tarasyl'an Te'las since the last Keeper to understand anything like the true tongue last cried out from within the confines of the last fruitless prayer to Creators who had long since closed their ears to any plea.

A shudder ran through the fortress and everything stopped. Inches away from Solas, Leliana stood motionless, unblinking, unbreathing, her knuckles white where they clutched her useless blade. In the main hall below, the frozen flames of the torches cast unnatural, unmoving light over a coin suspended in midair between Dorian's fingers and the pot in the center of the table, over Josephine hiding her smirk behind a hand of four serpents as she innocently called out "Raise!", over ale sloshing past the rim of Blackwall's cup as Sera elbowed him drunkenly and they laughed together at a private joke, over Cullen frowning at another terrible hand and wondering out loud whether he would have to sacrifice his trousers this time. And over the Inquisitor accepting a new hand of cards from Varric, hopeful and at peace for the first time in months, loving without question or reservation and being loved by others in turn. He wanted so badly to keep her in this moment, to spare her from what was to come and from what he would do. But to remain forever outside of the ceaseless march of time was not the proper way of things, not even for the so-called Forgotten Ones, and he turned away from her and resumed his work.

He sent tendrils of his power in Leliana's direction and picked her thoughts apart, not so differently from the way that her ravens teased out their favorite morsels from a carcass. Her mind was more labyrinthine than he had come to expect from a _shemlen_ , yet its component parts were easy enough to identify: Songs and stories, techniques for picking locks and brewing poisons, a magpie's jumble of skills and aptitudes that she would never stop adding to. The Chant of Light, her taste in shoes, a dozen ways to kill a man quickly and soundlessly using only ordinary household tools. Her secrets, neatly organized and parceled out strictly as needed. Her faith, damaged but healing. And bobbing within a hidden vortex of swirling emotions, her memories. The one that floated immediately to the top, encased in a thick shell of pain that held it as closely as a weapon of last resort clenched in a fist, as tightly as scar tissue binding up an old injury, was not the one he sought. But it wanted to be seen now, wanted to make him understand, and he let it brush against him and mingle with his own thoughts -

_An elven woman in bloodstained armor, her face scarred and branded with slave markings even more extensive than the Inquisitor's own. Young, so young. We all were back then. In rage, in relief, she screams out the last breath in her lungs and drives her sword into Urthemiel's skull. A rush of power, violent, repulsive, as the Old God's soul pours into hers. A sudden and profound silence as both are snuffed out at once. I drop my bow, I run to her, I catch her as she crumples to the ground - but her beautiful dark eyes have already gone wide and unseeing. Already her spirit is spiraling away from me along those hidden paths through the Fade that only the Maker can walk. All around us the surviving soldiers and mages are struggling to their feet and breaking out into cheers. The Archdemon has fallen. We are victorious. Now I must endure._

\- until he jerked away, sickened. _These children understand nothing of what they do._ Cautiously, he reached in again until he skimmed the memory of Leliana's search for the village from the surface of her mind. He held her knowledge of his lie loosely in his cupped hands and gently rooted out any other stray images or recollections that might lead her thoughts back to it. He cast his awareness out beyond the boundaries of the fortress, following the delicate threads that linked her to the scouts who had carried out her orders, and deftly and precisely tore them away as well. The scouts would remember exploring the ruined village high in the Frostback Mountains but would recall nothing of its significance. Leliana, for her part, would lose track of the orders she had given and blot out the things she had learned - an understandable lapse, given the weight of her myriad responsibilities. Later, when he was finished, when he was gone, the spell would fade, and she could remember her intentions and seek whatever answers would bring her a measure of peace. As time began to thaw around him, he gathered all of these things to himself and breathed another word upon them:

_"Forget."_

Leliana took two halting steps backwards, blinking in confusion. Dorian's coin clattered onto the table, Blackwall spilled his ale and cursed, Josephine's devious giggle bubbled up into the rafters. Less than a heartbeat had passed for any of them, yet in that instant, everything had changed. _I'm sorry,_ thought Solas. _None of you can know the truth._ He sagged hard against the balcony railing, more exhausted by his spell than he had expected to be, and pretended not to notice as Leliana hastily sheathed the stiletto he knew she didn't remember drawing. "My apologies," she said, trying and failing to conceal her disquiet. "It seems I have become lost in my thoughts. We were speaking of the Inquisitor, yes?"

"Yes."

"She is a singular woman indeed." Leliana moved to stand next to Solas again, and they looked down at the continuing game of Wicked Grace in silence. After some time she spoke again, her words hushed and hesitant, as if she were not sure whether she should reveal so much of herself through them. "At times, the Inquisitor reminds me of someone I once knew well. She was also Dalish, from Clan Sabrae - and also chosen for a great purpose."

"You mean Warden Mahariel. The Hero of Ferelden."

"Rumors travel fast through Skyhold, don't they? Well, then, if you know to whom I refer, you already know how her story ended." Her words were heavy with the same profound sadness that her memories had plunged him into. _She doesn't know that she doesn't need to tell me. I've already seen the worst moment of her life from inside her own mind._ "We loved each other deeply. But in the end, the only choice that she could make was the one that sent her to a place I could not follow. She did what she had to do, and the price was her life."

"I am sorry," Solas said, and meant it.

"I would have followed her anywhere. Even into death. I never expected to face the Archdemon and live. For a long time I wondered why the Maker had willed it this way, that I should live and she should die. I still don't have an answer. But perhaps He meant for me to live so I might tell her story to others. Especially the parts of it that only someone close to her could understand." Her hand twitched, as if she were considering reaching out to touch him in sympathy but then had thought better of it. "It is a terrible thing, Solas, to love someone whose truest calling is greater than love alone. Indeed, I would not wish it on an enemy."

"I know," he whispered, unable to look away from the Inquisitor's smiling face. "I know."

Leliana might have been about to say more, until she appeared to notice for the first time how heavily Solas was leaning against the railing. She frowned. "Solas? Are you unwell?"

"Simply tired," he said. "I accompanied the Inquisitor for her most recent battle with a dragon. I must admit I'm still recovering from the experience." Leliana's gaze flickered toward the colorful, fading bruises and the slowly healing cuts that were visible on one side of his neck. His barriers had not quite been a match for one particularly powerful blow from the beast's claws. _I slept too long,_ he thought. _I am too weak. Once, long ago, all of this would have been as simple and as natural as breathing. Had I but awakened sooner…_ He pushed that thought out of his mind, as he had done so many times before, and would again.

Leliana nodded. "Get some rest, then. The Maker only knows what awaits us in the morning."

"Yes, I believe I shall."

She took a few steps away from him and halted halfway to the stairs, her posture uncertain in the manner of someone who had forgotten why they entered a room and who was waiting to remember their reason for being there. "I'm glad the Inquisitor has so many friends at her side," she finally said, with a last glance at the increasingly rowdy and tipsy card game. "I hope you will continue to be one of them."

"As do I."

"Good night, Solas," said Leliana, and she turned and melted into the shadows.

"Good night," he said to her retreating back. He remained frozen at the railing, like a rabbit trying to escape a wolf's notice through perfect stillness, until the muted tapping of her footsteps had receded away into the distance. When he was certain that she had gone, he bolted for the stairs faster than was seemly, rushing silently through the lightless corridors of Skyhold until he arrived in the rotunda where he had made his lair. He collapsed into his desk chair and waited for his hammering heart to slow down. _That was too close. I should have known she would investigate my story. I should have put a stop to it sooner. Careless. What was I thinking? She was right - none of us can afford distractions._ He resolved yet again to cut that deepening tie of affection that had become his own favorite source of distraction, and knew just as surely that he would not.

After some time, Solas became aware that the game of Wicked Grace had ended. He heard the muffled sounds of chairs being scraped back from the table, of coins being swept into purses, of empty glasses being gathered and taken away to the kitchens, of friends fondly bidding each other farewell for the night. All of Skyhold eventually went silent again, and he assumed that everyone had left - until the door leading into the rotunda from the main hall creaked quietly open and Inquisitor Lavellan slipped through it, her eyes flashing in the faint sliver of firelight that shone through the crack. It was just enough light for an elf to see by, and she spotted him immediately.

"Have you been sitting here alone in the dark this entire time?" she asked in a soft voice as she approached him, stumbling a little as she walked.

"Of course not," he said with a smile. "That would be ridiculous. You must be drunk."

"I am not drunk!" she said with mock indignation, slurring her words slightly. "How can that be possible, when I don't remember ever emptying my first cup?" Partway through this rhetorical question she collided with the edge of his desk, sending a canister of paintbrushes clattering noisily to the floor, and dropped her hands to its surface to steady herself. "All right, I'm drunk."

"You can thank the Iron Bull for that." He stood up from his chair and took her gently by the shoulders. "At least you appear to have enjoyed yourself. Let me walk you to your quarters _._ "

"Not yet." She wrapped her arms around his neck. Her mouth met his in a kiss that tasted of ale and low, sleepy desire. "I wanted to see you. Why didn't you play Wicked Grace with us tonight?"

Solas hesitated and found he didn't want to lie to her, nor even to tell her the same half-truth he had told to Leliana earlier. "I don't know."

"Silly." Her lips brushed the tip of his ear. "You should join us next time. Everybody wanted you to be there, even if they might not have said it very clearly."

 _She actually believes that,_ he thought. "I will consider it. You really should go to bed, _vhenan_."

"Can I stay here for a little while first?" she asked, and again Solas discovered that he could not refuse her. He let her maneuver him toward the cushioned, cloth-covered bench along the wall, and they sank down onto it together. She stretched out her legs and rested her head against his chest, and his arms went around her as if by instinct. "Just for a few moments," she mumbled, but already he could sense the tethers of her spirit slackening to release her consciousness into the Fade. Soon he could tell by her deep, even breathing and the limp, warm weight of her body nestled against his that she was fully asleep.

He could have slept as well, could have followed her into dreams to seek insight or simply to distract himself, but he didn't. He stayed awake and stared out into the shadows of the rotunda. High above him in the rookery, one of Leliana's ravens croaked out a single hoarse, echoing squawk, then settled itself again with a few fast, fluttering beats of its wings. On the walls all around him he could barely make out the outlines of his half-completed fresco, the shape of the Inquisitor's journey. He didn't even have to be able to see it to know all too well what it depicted, even the panels that he had not yet painted.

 _"Ir abelas, ma vhenan,"_ Solas whispered to the Inquisitor, knowing she could not hear him. "I do not think I will be able to play Wicked Grace with you after all." The cards in his hand had already been dealt to him long ago in a time before the world was ever broken - just as they had been for everyone else in the game. In fact, he had already placed his final bet, though the Inquisition did not know it. All that remained for him now was to find the strength to play the hand he had been given. But all the same, on nights like this one, he wished with all the power in his ancient soul that it had not always been too late for him to fold.

**Author's Note:**

> Although this story is technically a one-shot, the Lavellan Inquisitor who features in it is meant to be the same one who appears in my [In Sleep](http://archiveofourown.org/series/204821) series. (I didn't make it an official part of the series because its focus and viewpoint are fairly different from the other parts of In Sleep.) If you're interested in shippy fic about this Inquisitor's relationship with Solas and their various angsty and/or sexy adventures together in the Fade, as written from Lavellan's perspective, you might enjoy my series in progress as well.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
